A prisoner at Guantanamo Bay said the U.S. military has taken aggressive new steps to end a hunger strike, from force-feeding detainees in a restraining chair to confiscating their blankets, according to notes released by his lawyer Thursday. Fawzi al-Odah, a Kuwaiti who was interviewed by his attorney last week, said the military announced the harsher measures in late December to pressure detainees to halt the protest at the detention center on a U.S. base in eastern Cuba, the notes said. The notes, which were declassified late Wednesday after a review by the U.S. Department of Defense, quote al-Odah as saying that officials warned detainees on Jan. 9 that hunger strikers would be strapped tightly to a restraint chair and force-fed with a thicker tube than had been used earlier. ... http://www.cbsnews.com

A 15-year-old boy whose 37-year-old wife is due to give birth to the couple's baby this month was found in Ohio after disappearing from a juvenile home, authorities said. His wife, Lisa Clark, was charged with hindering the apprehension of a child, said Douglas County Sheriff Phil Miller. She is expecting the teenager's baby in about a week. Richard Mecum of the U.S. Marshals Service said authorities tracked the boy to a residence in Cleveland through a package Clark mailed. The package contained a cell phone and money. Posing as a delivery man, a deputy dropped the package off at the home and was able to determine that the boy was living there, authorities said. Mecum said the residents did not know he was a runaway. Clark, in the Douglas County Jail, had no role in his disappearance and had no idea where he was, Clark's attorney, Dan Sammons, said last week. ...http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/09/national/main1301332.shtml?CMP=OTC-RSSFeed&source=RSS&attr=U.S._1301332

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Thursday he was blindsided by President Bush's announcement of new details on a purported 2002 hijacking plot aimed at a downtown skyscraper, and described communication with the White House as "nonexistent." "I'm amazed that the president would make this (announcement) on national TV and not inform us of these details through the appropriate channels," the mayor told The Associated Press. "I don't expect a call from the president? but somebody." Bush has referred to the 2002 plot before but he publicly filled in the details Thursday. Bush said Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in 2003, had begun planning an attack to fly a commercial airplane into the tallest skyscraper on the West Coast, the Library Tower in Los Angeles, since renamed the US Bank Tower. ...http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-02-09-villaraigosa_x.htm?csp=34

Top Chinese and Japanese officials are to meet in Tokyo on Friday in an atmosphere cooled by a dispute over Japan's wartime past. Vice-Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo's trip is the first by a senior Chinese official since October's controversial visit to a war shrine by Japan's PM. Junichiro Koizumi says his visits only honour those who died in war. On the eve of the talks a Chinese state councillor reportedly said ties could not improve while Mr Koizumi was PM. Japanese government spokesman Shinzo Abe called "inappropriate" remarks attributed to Chinese state councillor Tang Jiaxuan in a conversation with a visiting Japanese lawmaker that there could be no improvement in relations while Mr Koizumi remained in office. Mr Abe said the remarks "appear inconsistent with the Chinese leadership's statements that it regards Japan-China relations as significant". But he said the talks should not be written off because of one problem. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4698232.stm

He said that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in 2003, had already begun planning the West Coast operation in October, just after the 9/11, attacks. One of Mohammed’s key planners was Hambali, the alleged operations chief of the al-Qaida related terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah. Instead of recruiting Arab hijackers, Hambali found Southeast Asian men who would be less likely to arouse suspicion and who were sent to meet with Osama bin Laden, Bush said. Under the plot, the hijackers were to use shoe bombs to blow open the cockpit door of a commercial jetliner, take control of the plane and crash it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, since renamed the US Bank Tower, Bush said. Hmmm lets see, this Boogieman Mastermind was going to use a bomb to blow open the cockpit door of a pressurized plane? Thanks to our Glorious Brave Leaders this dastardly deed was foiled by our Fearless Fatherland Gestapo? Who is writing this crap? ...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11254053/from/RSS/

Security concerns have caused the government to suspend plans for an ambitious program to check every domestic airline passenger’s name against government watch lists, Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley said Thursday.Hawley told the Senate Commerce Committee that he has directed that the program’s information technology system “go through a comprehensive audit.”Hawley did not say whether any security flaws or breaches had been discovered. The program called Secure Flight has been troubled from the start.It is strongly opposed by civil libertarians who fear the program would grow into a massive domestic surveillance system in which the government tracks people whenever they travel.Nearly four years and $200 million after the program was put into operation, Hawley said last month that the agency hadn’t yet determined precisely how the it would work....http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11254968/from/RSS/